Mr Andrew Rawlins Catterall v Royal London Mutual Insurance Society — 2024

Mr Andrew Rawlins Catterall applied for interim relief under section 128 Employment Rights Act 1996 after presenting a complaint of automatically unfair dismissal by reason of protected disclosure. The only issue was whether it was likely that, at the final hearing, the tribunal would find that the principal reason for dismissal was that he had made protected disclosures. The tribunal proceeded on submissions only, heard no oral evidence, and treated the alleged disclosures as protected disclosures for the purposes of the application only, without deciding the underlying complaint.

The tribunal recorded that the claimant worked for Royal London Mutual Insurance Society from 22 May 2023 to 18 December 2023 as Data Privacy Lead. It noted that he raised concerns from July to late September 2023, including a concern that the Data Protection Officer held conflicting roles, and that Mr Miller had begun discussing a restructure in July 2023 which was written up by 11 September 2023. The restructure affected the claimant, his line manager, four data privacy consultants, Mr Alistair Barter, and potentially others in the data protection function; the claimant’s role was made redundant and he was not invited to apply for the new Head of Data Governance role.

The tribunal dismissed the application because it was not satisfied that the claimant had a pretty good chance of proving protected-disclosure dismissal. It found no evidence of a causal link beyond timing, accepted the respondent’s case that the communications were within the ordinary scope of the claimant’s data privacy role, and considered it implausible that Mr Miller would engineer a restructure to remove the claimant when the exercise affected several other roles and was not carried out by Mr Miller alone. It also relied on the fact that Ms Jolie Marshall was made redundant, that the responses to the claimant’s concerns were described as warm, and that the claimant’s allegations of a sham restructure and conspiracy were unsubstantiated at this summary stage. The tribunal said the interim relief application failed and encouraged the claimant to pursue his internal appeal.